Monday, 28 July 2014

I've been wandering for some time surrounding a crazy idea of playing a RT scenario of my own. It may be taking place in a hive/urban setting, it may contain one or more of the following: Adeptus Arbites, rioters, civilians, mutants, lots of scenery... and maybe an outlaw. All the idea came... well, I guess it's a long story. I'll try to simplify:

I got the Zombicide game, you know, right? Some of the minis were runners. I converted/painted all of them, right? Wrong! All of them but one! I took one of the runners apart because I suddenly came with a flash ('ephifany' sounds too much). I saw a fugitive escaping from the cops. And then all the RT scenario came to mind, just like if it had been there the whole time. Finally I have found the time to make it real.

Soooo, some green stuff was needed, of course:

Victory of Samothrace on the run

The head is Hasslefree, I had a spare one and was just perfect for this. Got to make him wear boots and kinda fatigue trousers. Not quite sure at the moment where I was heading the project.

Ooohh, I can feel my arms!

My idea from the first moment though was having the guy running and shooting backwards to his pursuers: Once I got the basic shape, I begun to work on the attire. Rogue Trader ambientation in mind, so nothing gothic, I'd rather explore the regular sci-fi ambientation. More Blade Runner, less skulls. He could just fit in any other number of ambientations (I have a loooong term idea for this model, but today it's not the day to talk about that). I guess a longcoat fits in properly for the outlaw, trying to hide weapons and to go unnoticed through the slums.

Looks easier than it is (at least for me)

Weapons were an issue. I didn't like the oversized regular guns we are used to see everywhere nowadays. A bolter or a plasma gun would have been ridiculously big in his hands. But normal weapons wouldn't fit in the Warhammer ambientation. I reached a compromise by using a Warhammer 40K laspistol on the left hand, the one which is closer to the body, and a normal gun on the right hand, the one which draws more attention to the eye on first sight.

Bang bang, zash zash

The guy still looked too generic. The final touch to warhammerize him was, of course, a sword. I thought of shoulder pads or stuff like that, but I really wanted this one to keep simple, nothing too flashy. Not a standout gang member, but a lone wolf trying to hide in the crowded streets of the monstrous city. So a sword would be the limit, I guess. I used a power sword, replacing the hilt for a 2nd Ed Space Marines knife hilt, the one with the eagle's head. A knife hilt looks big enough to look like a sword's one for this model.

BTW, long hair and beard added for dramatic purposes

So I just needed to paint him! I chose dark, dull colours, in accordance with what I just said. Here you have the results:

Runaway groom

This is the way I built up the character of Brent Beronis, a rather well known outlaw mercenary currently operating in the Besenval Port surroundings. He has earned some reputation being the man you need to contact with if an item has to be retrieved from a security vault, a person or goods need to be moved safely and discretely from here to there or even if a team has to be recruited for a certain work, no matter its nature. Not even his most usual associates know much about him. He is known to have a military past, which can be seen in the way he commands the groups he musters and how he conducts the operations, as well as his sword, clearly an Imperial Guard item. One of the several warrants on him is precisely for deserting, but no one knows his former rank or regiment. There are some whispers and rumours about him being an Imperial hero fallen in disgrace, but no one dares to say a word in his face. You only kneed to know if you have cash enough to hire his services...

Well, you can see, I already have something to start with for my RT scenario! An outlaw, Arbites... Hmmm, I think I still need some more stuff. That will come, I promise, that will come...

Thursday, 24 July 2014

Long time I din't post any proper Warhammer 40K old stuff over here! Enough of that!

I have repainted my old Whirlwind Tank. It hadn't seen a brush since I first painted it, and that maybe was in 1995? 1996? Whenever it was released.

I never was a Warhammer Red Era guy back in time (if you are unfamiliar with the term, I'm referring to thet period when the Games Workshop Studio begun to paint bright red details -or more than details- all over. Every single model had a touch of red). Though I painted some things in red, as everybody was doing then, red weapons always were too much for me. Never, never could stand that.

But anyway, enough chitchat! Here is my Whirlwind with no red on it!

Basic blue and basic highlights

Looks like I'm in my own White Era

The blue/white combination looks more appealing to me. I have tried it before on other Ultramarines and it's not that bad. I thought of leaving the rocket launchers in black, but I believe that white gives them that 'Oldschool' vibe without being thaaaat flashy.

That's it, with all the tiny details

You probably won't be able to spot it, but I painted an Eagle on the front, the Armoured Vehicle badge, you know, the Eagle with the lightnings.

And the usual 'cave pedes' (watch your step) signs under every door

Just an easy refreshing blue tank to keep straight on my way. I still have tons of blue guys awaiting to be put in line ready for duty again, let's hope I go on them sometime soon...

Monday, 21 July 2014

If you are old enough you may be singing Queen after reading the title for today's entry. You can expect to get not Zombicide fatties(tm), but 'big boned' zombie girls, brought to you by awesome Clearco Miniatures.

Here you have a couple of scale comparison shots. First one next to a Hasslefree model:

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do

And two Empress models:

Hmm, both of them hardenes warriors seem to be getting apart from her

For now I will be using them for my Zombicide games, the same as the sick guys I brought over here a couple of weeks ago. More variety for the apocalypse, you know. I know, I may have to test new rulesets...

Anyway, let's go see the girls!

Girl, if you dye your hair, you should take care of your eyebrows

Hey, world championship is long time over by now!

The girl on the right could be considered skinny among all the others

When you get all of them together...

They all are dancing Shania Twain... 'man, I feel like a woman'

As I am writing this I realize that I have missed one girl! Oh my! She was under the lead mountain and I didnt' see her! Shame on me!
Well, don't worry, I can tell you I still have a good bunch of Z's awaiting to be painted, so she will make it into another round, sooner or later... ;)

Monday, 14 July 2014

Brand new work! A commission for a friend; he purchased this Imperial Guard vehicle (well, I believe it is officially no more called 'Imperial Guard', but you know what I'm talking about):

This is the monster. Worst design ever. Or almost. GW are beating themselves these days

This might be a great Ork trukk, but I don't enjoy it pretty much for Imperial Guard. First thing to do was to get rid of those horrendous tracks.

After some failed experiments...

My friend got some decent wheels by himself. Sorry, can't recall the company, I'll ask him if you have any interest.

Still an Ork Trukk, but begins to look different

So once my mate was happy, I begun to work on the inner side:

You know, I can't resist to do these things

A little bumped in the inside

I could use a pine air freshener, dude

Now closing the driver inside!

My friend wanted the vehicle to be opened at will, so you can see the inside. So the rear ceiling is removable and you can have a look whenever you want.

The next challenge was that he wanted the weapon options magnetized so he can choose what to display for different battles. Therefore, three days later...

Really a hell of a work, drilling everywhere... without having a drill

Well organized display. Bazinga

For the outside colours we went on dark grey. It fits with other vehicles he has, but he wanted a different approach (That reminds me that I have to show you those vehicles, I painted them some time ago). He wanted not an open field battle vehicle, but rather an urban area, Arbites compatible truck. So dark grey it is:

My days here are so grey...

Some more paint later...

Blue here is used to avoid the Lannister effect

And then to start with the details:

If the stripe was red, this would be the 40K A-Team van

You don't get to see it properly, but it has a plate down there

So now let's see this with all the weapons options:

Basic Autocannons light option

Strange cannon and strange side lasers

A view from the other side with gatlings

Ehm... Maybe not the wisest option, staying just in front of those missiles

This has been my approach to this totally newschool vehicle. I have some infantry from my friend for this same project, but I'll be switching between projects as I tend to do, you know. So expect some different things before!

Monday, 7 July 2014

Not a big advance, but good enough for me! Just couldn't face another bunch of twenty identical minis :D

So.... some furniture to make this dungeon a home! First of all, the weapons rack. No dungeon is worth of that name without one of these:

This weapons rack is sponsored by the Lannisters

The game has a couple of cardboard bookcases. I know there is a number of companies making resin bookcases, but the other day I was wandering over Hasslefree about other things and saw these, so I just purchased them as well:

Warhammer rulebooks of all editions so far

Finally, these were quite unnoticed by me in my bits box for years. But I saw them the other day and just made them into the project:

Smaug has a little bit more, but who cares

I believe they surely are from GW (Those skulls are way too characteristic), but can't honesty say much more. Now they belong to my dungeon :D

That's it for the moment. I told you I got some stuff from Hasslefree. I'm currently painting that. The only clue I'll give you is that it has nothing to do with HeroQuest ;)

Thursday, 3 July 2014

These minis are the last part of what I purchased to Akula (remember? The not-Dune guy, among several other things) alongside the Psychneuein and the Astral Hounds. Once again, go visit his blog and purchase some minis!

I was looking for some sci-fi civilians; not that there is much variety (though I'm seeing new interesting goodies these days), but when I saw Akula's, I immediately knew I could use them.

The original models

Pics stolen from Akula's blog. That's why they are not blurry

I got a couple of each model, and then I used some green stuff to make them slightly different (you will see, in most of the cases that simply implies some hair on a bald head, hehe). I'll show you them by groups, the untouched and the modified versions:

That should look like a three-cornered hat from XVIII Century

Just sideburns, hair and moustache

These attires may look strange, but for my purposes (which will most likely be Rogue Trader games) these guys can be representatives of the Guilds in the underhive/shanty town/industrial neighbourhood/whatever. The colours identify the Guild to which each of one is original from.

Not Bene Gesserit. Not at all

Of course, where I say masters of the Guild I can say any kind of Burgomaster Deputy Authority or local nobility. Almost anything suits them.

These two look almost medieval

I should have tried some makeup with the ladies, I'm realizing right now. Maybe even some ritual tatoos could fit in well in these models. Hmm...

There is some brocade in all the ladies stoles. Shame on my pics again

My long term idea is having a fistful of nobles (or VIPs, whatever) and a little crowd of regular people, which can act as rioters in a number of scenarios involving Adeptus Arbites, for example. So the VIPs can either lead the mob in an anti-imperial revolt... or can be in need of police protection from the bloodthirsty horde willing to hang them!

Sci-fi weirdos

So that will be another challenge, to find (cheap) generic rioters with acceptable aesthetics that make them suitable for Rogue Trader ambientation. I have been spotting some interesting choices, but a full horde of lead men may not fit into my budget :S

But again, that will be a battle for another day. Today I'm OK with these. Now to move on more things!